[Editor’s note: The following text is taken from a message delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan on July 16, 2000 at Union Temple Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., pastored by the Reverend Willie Wilson.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
What is meant by the virgin birth? Every woman is a virgin before she meets a man. Mary (Mother of Jesus) was an extraordinarily righteous woman. She was so pure that the Holy Qur’an says of Mary, that she is the best of women. She was so good a woman until the angels argued among themselves as to who would have charge over Mary. She was such a special woman because she had to bring into the world a very special man to bring us the challenge to change.
They had to hide Mary because the law at that time, which was the law of Moses, was that any woman found pregnant and you don’t see a man, she would be stoned to death. But God knew that she had a purpose and her son had a purpose. She was to serve as a sign. The Qur’an says, Jesus and his mother were for a sign.
Beloved family, as a virgin is a female that has not had a sexual experience with a male, a people who have not had an experience with God are a virgin people. “The virgin shall conceive and bring forth a man child.” The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that this scripture is really talking about us—a people that are no people, a people who have never had a relationship with God such that out of us could come a deliverer for us from God.
No people on earth have ever suffered as we have suffered, but God intervened in the affairs of others and gave them a deliverer. You are no less than they are, therefore, we demand God’s intervention. We have a right to say to God, “We know you’re good and we know you are just, but we have been here 400 years under oppression. And the way this thing is going right now, God, the enemy is using chemical and biological warfare to destroy the whole people.”
In every city in America, funeral parlors are filled with young men from ages 18 to 45. The number one killer is AIDS, second is gunshot wounds and the drug culture is right behind it. If God can see our suffering and hear our moaning and our groaning under a wicked taskmaster and He went down (to the people) in that day, won’t He come down now and give us a deliverer who will challenge us to change?
The Jesus that was prophesied is for you. He is our man. He’s a righteous man. He’s a good man. He’s an example of what a man can become when he surrenders completely to God. When you surrender your life to God, that is a transforming experience, but it’s a challenge to accept His leadership.
You can talk about Jesus, but to accept him as the leader in your life, the teacher in your life, the guide in your head that guides the speech from your lips and the work of your hands in the path that you walk, that’s another thing entirely. You can come to God as you are, but you can’t stay that way. Paul said, “Be ye not conformed to this world.
Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” That’s a challenge to an ex-slave to change a slave mentality worshipping a false master; change now and bow down to the True Master and follow the example of him whom God raised as our example. You call him Jesus, the Christ.
What kind of an example was he? When you read about his life he never once disobeyed God. So he is called the second Adam. The first Adam messed up, that’s why God, when He created the first Adam on the sixth day, could not say “this is good” just yet (See Vol. 20 No. 12).
But if you look at the lineage of Jesus, it goes right back to Adam. Referring to the lineage of Jesus, one scripture says that he’s the seed of David, the root of Jesse, the bright and the morning star. David was a man. Jesse was a man.
The seed, meaning the sperm, that formed the master was from one way back that had erred and made a terrible mistake that passed death on the whole human family. But one was coming that God could say, “this is good.” And through that good man the challenge would be thrown down to us to change.
The challenge is here today; we have to change. Satan is the master of America. Satan is the master of the world. Is Satan your master? The god within wants to be sure that we are not liars, that we are truthful in our confession. The Bible says that the sons of God came to present themselves before God and the devil came also with them.
The sons of God were hanging out with the devil. What kind of company are you keeping as a son of God? What do the people you hang out with do? What kind of thoughts do they think; what kind of words do they speak; what kind of actions do they involve themselves in? Yet you say they are your friends?
So God asks, whence cometh thou Satan? Satan said that he comes from walking up and down, to and fro in the earth seeking whom he may devour. He was making everything a part of himself. Satan was eating up the world and God could only point to one man. God asked, have you considered my servant Job?
All the rest of God’s servants had been devoured by Satan. What about you and me? Who is your master? Who is your example that you will pattern your life after? I want to be in God’s Kingdom, don’t you? I don’t want Satan to say, “yes, Farrakhan, you sure sound good on Sunday morning, but on Sunday night I got you. On Monday morning, I got you.
I got you through the week, but now you are going to act like you can preach for God on Sunday?” Satan says he’s in the pulpit; he’s in the governor’s mansion; he’s in the White House. Who are you voting for? Cast your vote for the perfect example of Jesus, the Christ, and accept the challenge to change.
Beloved Muslims and Christians, Nationalists and Pan-Africanists, no matter what your ideology is, if we really want to be a family, if we really want to love each other, if we really want to be one in God and one in Christ, then we have to accept the challenge.
If we lie and gossip and slander and fornicate, if we covet our brother’s wife or our sister’s husband, if we do the things that break apart the family, then we can sing and shout together in church, but when you look in the mirror you have to confess, “I’m a liar because I have not accepted the challenge to change.”
It’s not easy. If it were easy we all would have done it. It was a challenge for you to get your bachelor’s degree. It was a challenge for you to get a master’s degree. It is a challenge for you to be a great basketball player or a great whatever you are—that’s a challenge. But the challenge to be Godlike is the greatest challenge of all. Once we accept that challenge, the process of change will begin.
There is no sense in us talking about the White man and how wicked the government is. The real enemy we have to challenge is the satan of self. The hardest fight you will ever have is when you go to war with yourself to accept the challenge to change.
Your change and our change will force change in the world, but somebody has to stand up and accept that challenge. As it became clear to me on my deathbed that I believe, now my belief must be translated into action that my good works will glorify my Father in heaven.
May God inspire us. May God stimulate and motivate us. May God allow us to be the recipient of His spirit through our receiving of His word. When you are striving to be right, you must be in the company of those who are striving with you so that when you get weak you can draw strength from your sister or your brother who is strong. And together the church will be strong, then the community will be strong and our nation will be strong. Come on and let’s accept the challenge to change.
Thank you for listening and may Allah (God) bless you as I greet you in peace,
As-Salaam Alaikum.
